Rivals-good? or bad?

This is something that has come across to me as quite shocking; that in Singapore there appears to be rivalry among the top schools. For example, Raffles Institution is seen as the adversary of Hwa Chong Institution, and perhaps Raffles' Girls is the enemy of Nanyang Girls'. It appears that the elite schools in Singapore cannot co-exist in peace.

Furthermore, this is worsened by the propaganda spread by the seniors in the school. I remember during my Secondary One Orientation, one of the cheers was that "Raffles Sucks!" and this was worsened when the Secondary Four seniors decided to create a skit which involved the top schools in Singapore. Basically, the representative of each school entered a race which left Hwa Chong as the ultimate winner, and displayed the participants from other schools as weak, especially the on from raffles, as he didnt't finish the race. Thought this is somewhat true, as Raffles hasn;t been able to beat us at the National Schools Track and Field chanpionships for quite some time, I feel that this was an unnecessary exaggeration of the situation.

I agree that in many sports and academics competitions there are bound to be clashes between Hwa Chong and Raffles Institution. However this does not mean that we must treat one another with great hostility simply because of our desires to win. Each school has their differences and we should accept the fact that we cannot be the best in everything.

I believe that we should treat students from different schools with respect. One must always remember that what makes us improve is the presence of opponents and without them we will stand still as a block of wood. After all, if we cannot get the satisfaction of saying to our old classmates when we meet:" I have better grades than you!" and we cannot enjoy rubbing that fact in, then what motivation is there for us to study hard and do well?